


Bone Deep

by lizandletdie



Series: 500 Follower Promptathon [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Skin Deep AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1843333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short drabble wherein Belle makes a different choice after meeting Regina.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bone Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompted:  
> Instead of just kissing Rumple in Skin Deep she tells him someone once told her TLK would break any curse and asks him if he wants to be rescued from the darkness inside.
> 
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"Why did you come back?"

"I wasn’t going to, but then something…changed my mind."

Belle was close enough now she could feel his breath, ghosting over her lips.  She need only stretch forward an inch — two if he refused to meet her halfway — and her lips would be pressed to his.

 _Do the brave thing…_  she reminded herself, summoning all her courage to lean forward and —

"And what would that be, dearie?" his voice brought her back to the present.

She felt a quick dash of self doubt, then.  Was she being too rash?

"Someone told me once," she hedged, trying to buy herself time to think, "that true love’s kiss could break any curse."

He blinked and sat back, staring at her in confusion for a long moment before comprehension seemed to dawn on him.

"Ah, yes," he said. "That’s…that’s true in theory."

"So there could be a curse it couldn’t fix?"

He shrugged, his hands coming to rest on his wheel, stroking the wood to soothe himself.

"Why are you so interested in this?" he said instead of answering.

Belle took a deep, steadying breath.  She’d been on the verge of kissing him seconds earlier, it shouldn’t be this hard to tell him that she had nearly done so in such a round about way.

"What about your curse?"

His hands stilled on the wheel.

He looked at her sidelong, as though trying to sort out if she could really be saying what he thought she was saying.  She was suddenly aware of her hand on his thigh and the proximity of his body in a way she hadn’t been even as their lips had come so deliciously close to touching earlier.

"I’m not sure about that," he said softly, his voice filled with regret but something else, some deeper need.  "But it’s not something I would choose to risk, if I were given the choice."

"Your son?" she guessed.

He nodded, then, his mouth working around the words of affirmation he couldn’t quite force himself to speak to her.

Belle took a deep breath, gazing into his eyes that were willing her to understand the import of his words and to accept that he was giving all he had to give to her.

She offered him a soft smile and was relieved when his own face began to relax into one of his strange grins.

"Why don’t I make us some tea?" she said as cheerfully as she could, using her hand on his leg to pull herself up off of his wheel.  She managed to keep her mood bright until she had left the Great Hall, and it was only once she was safely ensconced in her kitchen and boiling water that she finally let the tears fall.


End file.
